I hadn't thought about this as clearly before reading Gawain and the green knight, but there are really two different main types of heroes in stories.
There are heroes who slay evil creatures with great prowess in battle. Here the hero is often someone on a long path of ambition or vengeance, and they need to become stronger in order to overcome their enemies. This puts the focus on training, learning new skills and gaining experience in combat.
In other stories, heroes may do battle from time to time, but that is not what makes them heroic. They are heroic because they do the right thing where others don't, and because they have the courage to face evil not in a contest of swords, but in a contest of will.
Both types of heroes can make for good stories, but the former leads to a world in which the better killer is right. This means that if you want to convey some clear moral message through a story, the hero's ability to kill his enemies must somehow derive from his morals, which is somewhat hard to do convincingly. The latter allows the hero to triumph through pure strength of will, which allows the story to be a clear case of good morals triumphing over evil ones, rather than a fighter triumphing over a weaker fighter.
Hello, Merry!
ReplyDeleteI really like your point here. I feel like many times Tolkien focuses on the latter half of heroes because of the fact it's easier to explore morality and duty with them. I would say that many times classic epics put a focus on the former, such as Beowulf. I think you can talk about morality and such within the former stories however I see your point that it's waaay harder to seamlessly tie it together as it can be with the latter type.